Thread by @Hozay__, Hozay Remodels His HouseA thread for me to keep track of everything [...]

Hozay Remodels His House

A thread for me to keep track of everything I'm doing these next two months.

Its a lot.

Material delivery arrivals. Concrete bags, mortar, thinset, tile, drywall, steel framing. Garage ain't ready for cars yet.

This random 45° wall was the first thing I knew I had to get rid of.

Had to accommodate a few things and enlarge the space.

For reference, the outside will be unchanged. For the foreseeable future. A fence soon.

Anyway, back to that hideous 45.

CADded up a solution a few months ago and got to work yesterday

Much better. Now I just have to raise the floor slab up to be flush, dowel in some rebar to the existing slab, and use some hardiebacker as the form for the bag pour.

Next step here is to get my electrician to reroute the switches and outlets to the new walls.

Also, my goal for some time has been to have a dedicated 20A circuit for my home theater stuff.

Most standard homes have a 15A small appliances circuit that's shared across multiple outlets.

Nope. Not enough power for me. MORE POWER.

Also, I removed these hideous railings. I dont like visible staircases from living spaces.

Lastly for yesterday, I switched out the light switch in the public use half bathroom downstairs to a motion sensor so folks never have to worry about finding the switch.

Today I'll probably start installing smart light switches and my Nest thermostat.

$20, and install is a cinch.

Since I asked for plain Jane everything on purpose just to do it myself later, I also have a bunch of these ugly standard E26 ceiling fixtures everywhere to replace.

Nest thermostat in.

And the smart lock is in now. This is fantastic.

Bitch. Lmao. And I haven't even put the security system in.

Adding more smart switches now. Need to get some dimmers too.

And I rest for today.

Up next for this week is to start getting my study ready and get the kitchen guys started on the countertops.

I'm keeping the cabinetry but the standard formica has gotta go. Italian quartz is the way to go.

Look at this gotdamn quartz sample. That faint marbling. 745 white on white

Tile guys start working upstairs today.

And the new #HozayCinema couches arrived. The top grainiest, blackest, Italianest leather.

Bruh.

If yall could see this gotdamn tile installed.

Jesus H. And this is just in the upstairs hallway.

Downstairs? My my my

Quartz quartz quartz

RIP to the old shit

Bitch do yall see this sink lmao. I made sure to find the squariest fucking sink

I need to make sure my existing boxes are big enough to fit these popouts because I'm gonna be disappointed otherwise

Fancy ass outlets ordered.

Eventually I'll do the entire downstairs with these but they be pricey lmao. Just the kitchen for now.

Putting in my new faucet. Look at this sexy bitch. Yall picked her

You know how hard it is to find a modern soap dispenser

Spent my morning hammering away at a raised 1" of concrete in the way of my room expansion.

And whew let me tell you was it a great way to vent some recent frustrations, my goodness

Absolutely gorgeous.

Once I switch out the 3000K lights in here for some 4000s its gonna SHINE

Room expansion slab poured and complete.

Gonna change the entire character of walking into my home.

Alright let's see what these MFs hitting for.

I only have a few existing wall boxes deep enough for these

Bruh.

"Alexa, is this dope as fuck?"

Switching out some standard outlets for some USB ones in the kitchen now

And now the missus has USB outlets while she whips up work

Now we install GFCIs. Note how I was careful to mark which wires were load and which ones were live, as its critical to wiring a GFCI correctly.

Ceiling speaker holes and new light holes. I look like I bathed in cocaine with all this drywall dust

I built a 6" thick, insulated, dual drywall layer, interior wall to serve as a sound absorbing barrier between the Cinema and the upstairs area.

It was placed here to also hide the stairwell.

From design to execution.

About to put the second sheet of drywall up

Simple switch out to start the morning. Need my voice control.

Aaaaaand done

Who's installing a dishwasher at 10pm on a work night?

This guy.

EVEN THOUGH THIS IS A LATINO HOUSEHOLD AND ITS BASICALLY A GLORIFIED DISH DRYER

I came up with a dope idea to integrate a sound bar into my kitchen because ceiling speakers will require way too much wiring and I don't know what's in my subflooring in the area.

That, and screwless wall plates are todays project.

Before and after.

Those 28sf are gonna make a huge difference. The missus was taken aback by how much bigger the house looks now.

Screwless wallplates.

You'd be amazed just how much changing out standard switches, outlets, and covers does to the look of a room.

Alright, so, today's morning project -

I want to add audio to the kitchen/bar area. Which would normally be easy in a single floor house - just put speakers in the ceiling.

HOWEVER - I did NOT map out the second floor in the kitchen area so I have no idea what kind of pipes -

- are hiding in the subflooring, especially since the kitchen is right under the master bathroom, so its inevitable there's a maze of plumbing that I won't be able to navigate without making holes.

I also want it to be Alexa powered, bluetooth, etc etc.

But since I hate seeing wires, seeing wires or wire runners in my kitchen for Alexa and for any sort of speaker system would drive me crazy. So it has to be discreet.

Which means I need a hidden power source in my kitchen, one that I dont need to add new.

Lo and behold - the in-cabinet outlet for the microwave. Single receptacle, 20A outlet on 12AWG to a 20A breaker in the main panel.

Critical here is ensuring I have sufficient capacity to fit what I want to add.

A 20A circuit can handle 16A max, and at 120V that's 1920W.

The microwave comes in at 1550W @ 13A, so I have a small amount of wattage [350w] and amperage (3A) I can use here.

This means any sort of receiver is out of the question.

It would need to be a sound bar.

Also, I would need a dual receptacle.

Tamper resistant just like the single receptacle one, and of course 20A rated.

Bam. Now I have power, in a hidden place, and without tons of extra electrical work.

Dang, I forgot to specify to, as always, TURN YOUR BREAKER OFF before doing this kind of work, and then double check the outlet to make sure it isnt live still. A tester, or a phone charger if its easier will do.

Flip breaker back on to verify our work is good - aaaaand money.

Now for phase two.

Getting Alexa and the soundbar involved.

Since it was gonna be powering a speaker, I didnt see the reason to get an entire Echo Dot.

So I picked up the easily concealed Echo Input, which has the exact same functionality in a smaller package.

And as a soundbar, having used their soundbars before and having a limited budget for this, I went with a Vizio 2.1 36".

Small, low key, with an always-on feature, and only $100.

And, barely a 100W power draw, within the 350W range I had.

Now to make some holes in my cabinets to run the wire.

Some folks use spade bits, I prefer hole saws with the pilot built in.

MDF makes a bunch of dust so make sure you have your vac ready. One hole done. Two to go.

The Echo Input is tiny.

Gonna use some double sided tape to adhere it to the underside of the cabinet so shes out of sight.

And we are finished!

No visible wiring, no visible Alexa thanks to the under cabinet mount, and fantastic sound for the kitchen.

Let's give it a spin.

I didnt like how she hesitated for my final question lmao

Plaster day. Finishing up the new walls.

Only three steps left for the major stuff after today.

Paint.
Tile.
Baseboards.

These lights with some 5000K GU10s... ::chefs kiss::

Two should be enough for the living room.

Today, we work on my work studio room.

Up first - switch out the stock for some 5000K track lights.

The memorabilia room is gonna be dope when I'm done.

I have been wanting to do something like this for years.

80 lbs of magnets.

For what?

Did we ever use one of these on Zoo?

...Anyway, about to lay out the Great Wall of Steelbook

Layout complete. Now we install the Great Wall

Laser tools >>>>>>

So we bought this fancy ass bed, but the delivery came without the hardware.

So I went to pick it up because impatient, but now I have to assemble it myself.

I got $200 back for the assembly, but this bed has 40 different pieces and a 20 page book for installation lmao

Paint day!

It took me 3 weeks to find a perfect adaptable wall plate for this former CAT6 cut out.

Time to start replacing light fixtures.

I mean, I did tell them all basic everything but these are just horrible lol lol lol

4000K LEDs, 2000 lumens.

More smart switches and more screwless plates

Removing 30 day old carpet protector from my carpet is like

Adding chunky smart switches to single gang wall boxes involves removing a ton of extra wiring to make it fit.

Why put an extra 5" of ground?!

Floors ready for tile.

Then baseboards next weekend and done!

So close to the interior decoration stage I can smell it

Finally back to work on the great wall of #steelbook

I believe @JesabelRaay will get first look.

Laser levels >>>>>>

Gonna have the smartest house on the TL once I'm done

Eight Echo devices.

All of Amazon HQ is listening to me belting out the lyrics to "Gasolina" right now

::takes off glasses:: Kitchen almost done...

Tile complete.

Baseboards and final paint touch ups this week and then we are DONE wow

A week ahead of my two month projection.

Weapons of war.

Gonna surprise the missus with her spotless new kitchen with everything clean and ready when she gets home today

TV mounting gawd

The remaining 3 circuits I'm converting is my post lunch task

Feel like a doctor whenever I layout my tools lmao

It was incredibly difficult to find:

- A modern ceiling fixture
- That had adjustable color temperatures
- That was dimmable
- Had minimal visible wiring
- WASNT ROUND
- And below $300.

It took me weeks. But I found one for the den, exactly what I wanted.

Baseboard day.

Finally done with all the construction by Saturday morning.

$1300 on artwork later.

Soon I'll be adding 1:2 scale replicas of these two works to the crib. Bonus points if you can identify the pieces.

Even at that scale, they're 4'x8' and 4'x4'.

Theyll fit right at home with the 1:4 scale replica of Guernica I already have.

About to test my new family room light fixture with the smart bulbs before I ceiling mount it.

Ceiling speaker time.

These are HUGE @BowersWilkins

Sex

Hand polishing and cleaning my floors. Need that mirror finish, or I dont want it

Brand new walls, already opening up holes

One up.

The hardest part is complete, installing the 4 B&W CCM683 in-ceilings and the 4 SVS Ultra surrounds.

Tomorrow, I put the gear up.

USB combo outlets are the dopest, I swear.

With these plus two 10' USB cords, I can charge two phones from any side of the couch by hiding the wires under the sectional and bringing it up through the seams - while still having two standard outlets for my smart remote & 2nd sub

Would you believe if I said I knew specifically what gear each one of these is for just by looking at em

Equipment room gonna be temperature and moisture regulated

Last minute, I decided to add more lights to the kitchen area.

A bright, white/gray kitchen just looks...

Whew.

Anyway, nothing a couple of remodel ceiling boxes and a roll of romex cant fix.